Selma looks into ways to attract food trucks

Published 9:27 pm Tuesday, June 28, 2016

City council president Corey Bowie is hoping a growing trend in the restaurant industry will find its way into Selma.

Food trucks have become a trendy way to eat in metropolitan areas, and Bowie is hoping that movement can continue in Selma. Bowie told the city council Tuesday that he’d like to have food trucks in the Water Avenue area on Sundays, so that tourists have a place to eat.

Many local restaurants are closed on Sundays, so Bowie said food trucks would be filling a need.

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“You don’t want to do it during the week starting off because you have other businesses downtown,” Bowie said. “You don’t want to compete with them, and I feel like it would be asset to the tourists that come in and tour our city on the weekend.”

Bowie said there is at least one food truck in the Selma area, but that others could come from Montgomery or Tuscaloosa.

Bowie said the plan is for food trucks to require a license and to pay sales taxes just like any other business, but at this point nothing has been finalized. He wants to zone them off where they can only be in the Water Avenue area.

“The key is to start on a smaller scale, like on Sunday where you get the tourism traffic and also some of the locals to come downtown,” Bowie said. “The ultimate thing is to try to get people involved more in downtown.”